Looks like you got your stats from the New Century Foundation, a white nationalist, neo-Nazi organization. So I'm really not going to put any stock in this. If you want to rebut the column, try a less obnoxious source.

That's funny, mjf504, the criminalization of opinion writing. That will certainly add to Louisiana's world-leading prison population. If you can identify a factual error in the column, go ahead. But remember, please, an editorial or a column by its very nature takes a side. Therefore, your criticism that it's one-sided isn't a criticism at all. That's what it's supposed to be.

PhatElvis, your post makes me sad. I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing, though. The forces that might ensnare these young people are strong, but I don't believe our volunteerism is futile. I've got to think it makes a difference.

artosrex, the sentence you reference was about what happened in Aug. 2007, but you're right; federal prosecutors certainly believe that he broke his vow to cooperate with them. They say he said he refused to be a rat. Here's what he said in open court: "I can't make up stuff, Judge, and I can't say what I don't know."

You know, I think about that statement in light of Judge Kurt Engelhardt's recent remarks during the Danziger Bridge sentencings. He accused the feds of encouraging their witnesses to lie. I found much of what the judge said that day disturbing, but it's interesting to think about Thomas' statement alongside Engelhardt's. I don't know if he had more information to give. If he did and chose to stay silent, he paid for it with a longer sentence. If he didn't have information to give, he did the more honorable thing.

booch, I don't know that anybody categorizes murder defendants by whether they had concealed carry permits. But I don't have any reason to believe that only better, more virtuous people, are permitted. I point out that the prosecutor says that George Zimmerman committed murder because the implication seemed to be that it's inconceivable that anybody with such a permit could violate the law. I don't understand the rationale for such a belief.

booch, I am indeed making reference to the Zimmerman case. Yes, he filed for an order against her after she had filed the same against him. That doesn't make my statement any less true. Remember, too, that Zimmerman was diverted into an anger management diversion program after he attacked a law enforcement officer. Sorry, if I were making the rules for who gets a concealed carry permit, he wouldn't make the cut. And if other states want to make such a call, I think they should be allowed.

justin1143, to answer your question, "When is the last time a citizen granted a concealed carry permit has murdered someone?" According to Florida prosecutor Angela Corey, George Zimmerman committed murder Feb. 26. We'll see if a jury agrees. But to get to the idea behind your question: Why on Earth would anybody believe that those with permits are filled with such virtue that they'd never commit a crime? What's the source of such belief?

SteveSmith, I grew up in a house with a gun. I have no problem with responsible gun ownership. None whatsoever. That doesn't make this a good bill, though. It stinks on its merits. If Florida grants concealed carry permits willy nilly -- even to those with histories of domestic violence, even to those who can't demonstrate an ability to shoot -- why should another state be forced to accept those people? For just a moment, put down your talking points and justify such nonsense.

obamanomo, I suppose in your view one either has to support no restrictions whatsoever on gun laws or be labeled a communist. I reject that categorically. Today's column isn't about how to stop crime. Nor is it in opposition to rational gun laws or gun ownership. It's about a piece of legislation that Sen. David Vitter is proposing that, in my view, is wrongheaded. As to your first point: I'm a columnist. I get to pick a side. No apologies for that.

lilredcar, your not knowing a single person who doesn't own a gun doesn't invalidate my claim that most Americans don't own one. There are about as many firearms in this country as there are people but that's because, according to the latest statistics, 3/4 of people who own guns own two or more. There's no bias leading me to say that most Americans don't own guns. It's a fact.

dickey3, you make some interesting points, especially regarding deals and their benefits. I still can't imagine what Renee Gill Pratt was thinking, going to trial not just once but twice. It really worked against her. Still, it was her right to take it to trial, and she did. But, so did Kaufman. He went to trial on what -- to me, at least -- is a far more serious charge. He was convicted and, yet, he's been sentenced to less time than she was. Of course, that's more on Judge Engelhardt than on the prosecutors. They wanted 20 years for Kaufman. The judge gave him a sentence closer to Lohman's, all the while suggesting that Lohman's deal wasn't fair. I don't think doubling down on the unfairness is the way to bring about justice.

dinosore, Eric LaFleur, the state senator (then-state representative) who authored the bill didn't respond to an email and phone message from me asking him why he wrote it. I was and remain as curious as you are.

uptowntom, his being Hispanic has nothing to do with whether or not he's white. One can be both. The police list him as white. That's why I did.

I never said there was a racial element to stand your ground laws. That's an assumption you're making. I honestly don't have a problem with the law as it's written. Why shouldn't I be able to meet force with force? My problem is with the misapplication and the misinterpretation of said laws.

Zimmerman gets to shoot a kid who is 100 lbs lighter because the kid punched him -- after Zimmerman hunted him down? Here in Louisiana, you get to shoot at somebody running away because they MIGHT stop and MIGHT have a gun? The law doesn't seem to give either shooter such permission.

dty468, I'm not comparing Jamonta Miles to Trayvon Martin but Florida's law to Louisiana's. They passed a "Stand Your Ground" law, and a year later Louisiana did. And at least one law enforcement official believes it gives people the right to fire at people on the run. It doesn't. The larger point is that it isn't always the law that's the problem, but how that law is interpreted.

dinosore, I say explicitly in the piece that I think it's too soon to expect anything to have happened re: Wendell Allen. I also say that it's never too soon to fear the worst. No, I don't want a sloppy investigation. But I do understand the family's restlessness. As the Justice Department report indicated last year, the NOPD never says a cop who shot a civilian was in the wrong. We can hope that will change with the involvement of the FBI, but the history of the department shouldn't/wouldn't give the family any confidence that anything but a fix was in.

rhettswife, here's why I wrote and will continue to write about cases such as this. These are the kinds of cases that make black people, black men in particular, feel particularly humiliated and incapable of becoming full and free participants in American society.

Is the problem of black men killing black men more pervasive? Absolutely. But what makes cases such as these so disruptive psychologically, what puts me and other people on edge, is the message that's communicated by our official institutions: You don't matter as much. You don't enjoy the same right to walk down a street and not get chased down and killed. Your not having a gun in your hand doesn't mean the cops still won't shoot you. Imagine that being your reality.

Beyond that, let's be real. You've read enough of my columns to know that I have written about our crime problem often. But tell me what you'd assume would be the effect of my writing harsh columns about the criminals? Think they're going to read it and stop being criminals? I doubt it.

I write about our institutions doing the wrong thing in large part because there are real people who run those institutions, and they have the power to do something. As I've said here before, I'm not writing bumper stickers. I'm not writing to satisfy those who want me to reiterate their talking points. I'm writing because I want things to change. I want to live in a place where I can feel confident that neither law enforcement nor pseudo law enforcement won't wrongly shoot me and then accuse me of having brought it on myself.

966, did you see what I said in the column about the apologists? You've confirmed it. "Anything and everything to avoid blaming the cop who pulled the trigger." Wendell Allen was not armed. The coroner, who has a regrettable history giving cover to the police, doubts in this case that Allen was close to the police officer when the officer fired his fatal shot.

If we're being fair here, the suspicion should be aimed at the officer, not the victim and not his brother. Stop trying to make it be about something else.

Jeff Smith, in case you weren't here or in case you forgot, this is the beginning of the story published in the T-P March 4, 2002.

Ray Nagin can thank voters in the city’s middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods for his comfortable 18-point victory in Saturday’s mayoral runoff.

Nagin, a Cox Communications executive who ran as a pro-business reformer, built on his near-monopoly of white votes in last month’s 15-candidate primary to beat Police Superintendent Richard Pennington Saturday in just about all the city’s middle- and high-income neighborhoods, regardless of their racial makeup, according to a Times-Picayune analysis of the 59 percent to 41 percent outcome....
Overall, Nagin carried every one of the city’s 143 precincts where at least half the voters are white, plus more than four in 10 majority black precincts. He finished first or tied in a quarter of all precincts that are at least 75 percent black. In total, he took 273 of the city’s 442 precincts.